Makers vs Managers Schedule and the Calendar

1d (edited) • 💬 Chat

[Edit I recently posted this in another forum about using Google Calendar / Tasks, Bill asked me to post here, hope you find some useful strategies to deal with those appointments and tasks that just seem to whoosh by]

Back in the day I was a programmer. I was all about 'doing' tasks / bug fixing and avoided meetings like the plague. Meetings just got in the way of the tasks assigned to me. Back then I was a 'Maker'.

Today I'm more of a 'Manager', I have to manage a team to move the company forward.

But as a small business owner I kind of have one foot in both sides.

This is something I've struggled a bit when using the Calendar.

In addition I also have a separate Calendar to track Projects inside our Project Management Tool.

This goes against the 'everything in one place' concept that Ali teaches.

The Team mostly uses the PM Tool but there is stuff assigned to me on the PM Calendar and some of this has been falling through the cracks since I've been hanging out more in Google Calendar / Tasks.

Interested to hear if anyone else struggles with this?

Below is how I am currently dealing with wearing the two hats.

I integrated our PMTool with the Google Calendar / Tasks so I everything is now in one place.
I blocked out Mondays and Wed + Thur 7-11 am for Doing Tasks. No meetings can be booked in these slots. And for the 7-11am sessions and I have my phone off and 'focus mode' on.
I only have one team meeting a week. And one development meeting and make sure I have a clear agenda before the meeting. I put bullet points in the Google Meeting notes.
When I'm in Task mode I hit the Focus button my Chromebook, I can then select the task I'm working on and set the 'do not disturb' time, so no notifications / tasks pop up to distract me.
I also use focus mode during meetings, to stop all the message pop ups.
The team also now have visibly of my calendar so they know when I'm free. Most have been with me for 8 years, no secrets..
I use Events to 'time block' similar tasks. e.g. Tax, but then drag in the related tasks to do in that block. Often I end up dragging these over, but at least they don't get lost.
Every month I still go old school and divide up an A4 sheet of paper with the 8 core parts of the business and place the priorities in side those boxes. It's a mix of Company / Product / Client focused stuff. I like to have main 'goals / needle movers' all on one page, which just sits on my desk so I can glance at it. The process of writing it out really makes me think about what's important and keeps me on track.

You can read more about the Makers Schedule here if interested (penned by the Y Combinator founder):

https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

That's enough procrastinating from me, back to work!

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